Gooseberry is a young boy, probably an orphan, whose real
name is Octavius Guy. He is one of the street children that populated literature at the
time. While he only shows up for a few pages, he is integral to the plot, as he follows
the mysterious sailor who has received a package from Luker, who is suspected of hiding
the Moonstone at a bank. Gooseberry follows him and discovers that he was trying to
board a boat.
...a small boy, dressed in a jacket and trousers
of threadbare black cloth, and personally remarkable in virtue of the extraordinary
prominence of his eyes. They projected so far, and they rolled about so loosely, that
you wondered uneasily why they remained in their sockets.
(Collins,
The Moonstone,
gutenberg.org)
Gooseberry is
not present for the denouement, but his information is essential to clearing up the
story, and the identity of the true thief. Had he not followed the "sailor," revealed to
be Godfrey Ablewhite, the stone would still have been retrieved by its original owners,
but the protagonists of the story would have been hard-pressed to discover what had
happened. In this way, Gooseberry is a minor character who serves an important role;
although he does not undergo any significant characterization or arc, he ends up being
important.
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